Miles Teller Grabs Lead Role In ‘The Spectacular Now’; ‘Love Punch’ Adds Two More

When you start with Rabbit Hole but continue with Project X & Footloose, I think something didn’t go quite as planned. Miles Teller‘s minor (creative) bump in the career road could be atoned for soon, however, with Deadline pegging him as a co-star to Shailene Woodley‘s in The Spectacular Now, a drama set to be directed byJames Ponsoldt (Smashed).

The film’s based on Tim Tharp‘s novel, and was adapted by Michael Weber & Scott Neustadter ([500] Days of Summer); in it, Teller will play Sutter, a developing alcoholic whose interactions with a younger girl, Aimee (Woodley), serve as the impetus to clean up before his life spins out of control. (We can all hope this is a process free of montages.) The story shares a little ground with Ponsoldt‘s last film — enough, as a matter of fact, that it convinced the Descendants star to keep Spectacular Now on her schedule — and, if he can get the same kinds of performances here, the two stars have some big things to look forward to.

Secondly, Variety reports that Timothy Spall (Harry Potter‘s Peter Pettigrew) and Celia Imrie (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) are the next two to join Pierce Brosnan and Emma Thompson in the romantic drama Love Punch. In it, the two play a divorced couple forced to amend when their pensions are stolen and, of course, needs to be taken back; it hasn’t been said who these two will play, though we can expect them to be pleasantly British.

Joel Hopkins (Thompson‘s Last Chance Harvey) has already started shooting his own screenplay, thus giving Love Punch a release that should fall somewhere in 2013. Radar Films, Process Media, and Love Punch Limited (yeah, I don’t know) are all producing.

Does Teller have the right stuff to hold his own against Woodley? Are Spall and Imrie actors you’d consider yourself fond of?